There are about a quarter-million hate-group members nationwide.

Conventional wisdom suggests that racists are tossing and turning at night over the prospect of a Black man in the White house. But, word is, White supremacists are looking forward to a Barack Obama presidency, The Associated Press reports. Take Louisiana Klansman David Duke, who came within inches of being a U.S. senator in 1990. He describes Obama as a “visual aid” that other White supremacists can rally around. And the brands of White supremacists are many. In addition to a number of KKK subspecies (the United White Knights, Church of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Imperial Klans of America Knights of the White Kamelia, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, etc.), there’s the Aryan Nation, the Nazi Party, the Skinheads, the Nationalist Movement and the average, run-of-the-mill racist who believes that Blacks are inferior. Organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, which make a living keeping their eye on White supremacy activity, estimate that there are roughly a quarter-million active hate-group members nationwide. One of those haters, 65-year-old Richard Barrett, a member of the Nationalist Movement, believes that Obama is just the catalyst needed to get White folks to unite. “Instead of this so-called civil rights bill, for example, that says you have to give preferences to minorities, I think the American people are going — once they see the ‘Obamanation’ — they’re going to demand a tweaking of that and say, ‘You have to put the majority into office,’” Barrett told The Associated Press. Duke, in a recent essay posted on his Web site, titled, “Obama Wins Demo Nomination: A Black Flag for White America,” wrote that “Obama is a visual aid for White Americans who just don’t get it yet that we have lost control of our country, and unless we get it back we are heading for complete annihilation as a people.”